My 14 year old son shot a 512 pound black bear in Arkansas last week on a deer hunting trip. (Luckiest kid in the world) and I'm not sure how to measure the skull, as here in Alabama, I never get bears in the shop. Do you measure with a caliper or just lay the tape on the skull. The caliper gives me a shorter measurment, but it still green scores over 21 inches. Would this make the minimum for boone and crocket. Thanks
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Caliper is the correct method.
21" is book minimum. Nice bear!
especially for a kids first. When we all came in that night and he said he had shot a bear I asked if it was a big one, hoping he at least had not shot a cub. He said it looked big to him, and since he had never seen a bear before I thought, well maybe 250 lbs. When we walked up on it I dang near shat my pants. Holy crips! I had skinned a few bears when I worked at a shop in Colorado but nothing like this. The hide without stretching at all measured over seven feet nose to base of tail and 56 inches across the middle.
We couldn't get a straight answer from Arkansas game and fish, every one we talked to said something differnet. One person said it would be the number 2 bear in the state others said in the top ten maybe. Who cares, still a great bear and I'm the one who is stuck with having to mount the big Son-of @$%^&.
Don't boil the skull.Manually clean the skull and dry it or have it bug cleaned.Get it measured after 60 days.That's an incredible bear.A lot of big bears don't go 21".My B+C book is 1999 and I don't see any bears in there from Arkansas.A lot can happen in 6 years,but this tells me that it's a very special bear.Keep in mind that 90% to 95% of bears in B+C measure under 22".McKenzie is the only company that makes a black bear form that size right now,76" and 78".Keep in mind that your green skin measurement is longer than the actual carcass.These 2 forms were sculpted from a 550# boar.Congrats to your son.
I cleaned the skull with a pressure washer.